Vending products using automated equipment has gained wide acceptance among retailers and customers. Vending equipment is typically inexpensive to operate and occupies relatively little space in comparison with other retail operations. It does not require much human intervention and supervision, such as store clerks in traditional retail outlets. However, conventional vending machines have limited capabilities suitable for vending inexpensive products, such as soft drinks, candies, and newspapers. It is not uncommon for vending machines to dispense the wrong products or no products at all, but yet contain no mechanism allowing customers to obtain credit or return products. Moreover, restocking merchandise in vending machines is usually performed in a loosely controlled manner at best, frequently resulting in stolen products and products being out of stock. Such deficiencies of vending machines are often tolerated to some degree by the customers because the vended items are low value items and do not involve complex purchasing decisions and transactions.
Vending machines are generally not suitable for vending high value items, such as electronics, software, perfume, and other relatively expensive items. Most consumers are also not comfortable buying expensive products without first collecting relevant product information, assessing various options, and being certain about various aspects of transactions and payment processes. Traditionally, retail clerks were involved in assisting customers with purchasing of such products. However, these tradition retail operations involving clerks have many drawbacks including high costs and large floor space requirements. Many consumers also find that retail clerks lack sufficient knowledge about products and exert excessive selling pressure.
The recent growth of web commerce does not address many identified issues and, in fact, creates some new ones. For example, customers cannot assess physical appearance of actual items that are offered for sale. Reputation of internet retailers can often be hard judge, and customer may be hesitant to tender large payments to unknown entities. Further, products are not immediately available to customers and shipping can take a few days and even weeks. Returns and exchanges tend to be very complex and requires additional shipping.
Overall, there is a need for vending stores that can deliver extensive product information, accept payments, immediately deliver products, and provide other functionalities for vending high value items.